David and Goliath

So one day last week with coffee in hand I'm down am the dock putting out some Mustard greens, and Romaine for the gang, when I feel as though I'm being watched,..but there are no people or iguanas to be seen.
I went about my business, and as I was hosing off part of the dock, I noticed something large under the floating Jet-dock.

We have many different species of fish that visit the dock, some are regulars and then there are the animals that you only see once in awhile.

There have always been grouper in our canal,.. I have seen plenty of; Black Grouper, Gag Grouper, and small Jew Fish, a.k.a."Goliath Grouper",...but well,...pardon my language on the video,..I was taken back, when I looked under the dock to see a 4'+, (four foot plus) Jew-fish staring up at me.

By the time I wrestled my phone from my  phone from my pocket,..he dropped/descended to the depth filmed, witch is about 9', (nine feet) below the dock.
When I first noticed him, (just moments before I got the camera rolling) he was close to the surface, just a foot below the dock.

I never entertained this thought/scenario until this experience, but I'm sure a grouper of this size, (or even smaller) could, (and most likely would) power-down, (in a split-second) a small iguana as they  swim through the shared water-ways, traveling from point A to point B.

There's nothing,no, nothing, that's higher than me!"

On the far-away island

of Sala-ma-Sal,

Carl the Iguana

was king of the canal.


"If I could sit high,
 how much greater I'd be!
What a king, I'd be ruler
of all I could see!"

 Have been trying to take some better pictures of King Carl in his roost,... not necessarily high quality shots, close-ups, or anything along that nature,.. but a shot to give you an idea of  just how high this animal sleeps,..his branch,...the branch he calls;"bed",  "thrown", and "look-out tower".

I'm not great at estimating distance and height, but I am sure he is at least 45, most likely closer to 50-60 feet above the water when he calls it a night.

I took the below 3 pic zoom-in with my iPhone on a cloudy gray morning last week.

The base of his tree, (an un-indigenous Australian Pine) is at the waters edge, he is cantilevered 10-20 feet out and over the water for a Yertle-the-Turtle  "I rule what I see-king of the pond"  type of  ideology, moreover to position himself  for the ultimate escape,... if necessary.

 Carl's roost

Below is another three-step zoom I shot this morning

 Carl's roost this morning, (5.13.2012)

I can see him after the sun sets until the night hides him completely,  he is almost always in the exact same place and position as the sun rises the next morning.

Carl is basically the Iguana Counterpart of Yertle-the-Turtle,  with half the greed and none of the slavery.

lol

The girls

I changed the header-photo/pic of this blog today, to one of Carl, (with the arrow hole through his head), Steve, and Lady,...and as I was choosing the photo realized/asked myself ; Lady!??,..where the F has Lady been?,...or Dotty,..I haven't seen her either?

Lady and Dotty are/were the two top females in the slaughter, ....constant companions of Carl and Steve, the female counter-parts of 1+2.

They both visited and would spend most of their day on the dock for the past three years, (Lady about 5)...however I have not seen either since Steve was killed?

Lady is funny and sometimes doesn't spend all day, (I could be missing her)...but Dotty usually shows up around 10:00AM and doesn't leave until about 7:00PM,...I am more concerned about this one.

Carl and Lady sharing lunch Halloween 2011

(Just 3.5 months after Carl was shot through the head)

I will be keeping an eye out for my two girls.

The new number 2

....Life goes on down on the dock, (and has been) while I've been mourning my little buddy Steve.

This left an important, desirable  position open,....#2

As I had predicted "Nedrick", aka; "Ned", aka; "Nervous Ned", aka; "Rick", aka; "Slick-Rick", moved right into the position he had been satelliting for over a year,...second in command, the "Dock-keeper" when #1 is busy mating, and/or defending the kingdom.

Ned; The new #2

For now I have decided on just "Ned", and/or "The new #2".

Ned was a sketchy, nervous, jumpy, little outsider, or "fringe" iguana, with very long, (almost freakishly long) spines, he showed up one day in the spring of 2010.

His spines were so long that they fell to one side like the hair of a horse's mane.

Long spines are one of the physical characteristics associated with males, along with a few other physical attributes, I have been wrong before,... i.e. short-spined males and long-spined females, do occur, however in this case,..there is no doubt as to the sex of this new wing-man.  

I have to go on record right here, and be honest that,...(and I know this sounds odd, and extremely  anthropomorphic,....but),...I have never really liked Ned that much.

..I don't know if it's just that I have always seen the iguanas I was familiar with chase him away,... I suspect it is the fact  that he would constantly challenge Steve,...he bullied my buddy.

Carl has been visiting the dock every day since Steve's demise,

......again I hate to admit this, but I would find some sort of gratitude or joy every time Carl would storm the dock displaying and/or chasing Ned,...Ned would flee to the next property as he always did in the face of a  larger iguana or human.

That was until the night before last,...I made a conscious decision to like Ned,..to include him in my family, to love him like I do all the rest,..to even go so far as to celebrate his existence,... after all he was just doing what any being would do,..trying to put itself /himself into a position that makes life  ...easier, more comfortable.

...we would all do the same.

So here is the bizarre part, ..... at one point yesterday, (only hours after I made my mental "turnaround") I went down, and couldn't believe what i was seeing,...I ran back up to the house to get my camera.

King Carl  (left), and the new #2, Ned (right) 

It appeared there was a synchronized universal, multi-species acceptance for Ned, and his place here on the dock.

 Carl and Ned were together?!,....Carl showing no sings of aggression at all, just some passive territory marking, i.e.,...Carl is "relieving himself "  in this photo,..he does so, (on the dock) everyday as a constant reminder to the others who is #1.

Welcome Ned, and congratulations,... you worked hard for this,...you deserve it.

Handsome Steve

I don't mean to dwell on loss, but I feel Steve deserves this,...he was one of the entities that made my life what it is, a being that I would lounge around and relax with out on the dock, in what felt/feels (to me) like harmony,..harmony with beautiful exotic, extraordinary creatures, harmony with nature, with the world.


Steve was always there,...on cold days when none of the other iguanas would show-up,..Steve would,..on rainy days,....no one else would show,..but guess who would be there?


.....he was just always there.



When I was young I had the privilege to go, (with my parents) to St.Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. While being checked into the small individual "bungalow" I was taken-back, amazed, and immediately enamored with the three or four large lizards scampering up and over the domed cement roof  of the cottage.
I couldn't get over the beauty of the animals, the surroundings, and the nonchalant relationship between the West-Indian Gentleman showing us to our rooms and these large lizards.
 When I asked the man what they were he casually said "Oh day jus Iguana mon,...they no bodder wit no one"
 I returned to my temperate New Jersey fantasizing and swearing that someday I would  move-to, and live in a tropical place where Iguanas roamed free, and were just everywhere.

I did, and Steve is/was an integral part of that life, my life, mine and my wife's world.


The last three days of his life were spent curled up under a Papasan chair ottoman.

Steve about 24 hours before the last time I would ever see him.

Carl and Steve; the last time I ever saw them together, in the background, (in the water) is neighbor "Miles" telling me that Armondo, (behind him on the opposite dock with no shirt) had to "whack  a big orange one with a shovel because it was about to attack his dog".


Meanwhile, the "big orange one",..is the small dark lizard behind/next to Carl in this photo????
A lizard that is/was 12 inches from head-to-vent, (base of the tail),..and 24 inches of tail, (3 feet total),...but again,...only a 12 inch body.

I don't fault Miles for the way he told me, and as a matter of fact, his wife Pam, (also in the picture, in the water talking with Armondo) is a big fan of Carl's , (she calls him "Redman").

....but while Miles was telling me this story, about this big orange lizard, (that was today,..in fact a small dark green lizard that never asked to be born here), dying slowly in front of me.

The way Miles told me this story made me realize that he, (and most likely then majority of other humans) think that these animals come and go,... that they are all just on the move, like rouge nomads ravaging the landscape at will.
Nothing could be farther from the truth,.. these little guys stay in one area, are creatures of habit,..they will go to the bathroom at the same place everyday at the same time,... we have had the same core group of  about 12 individuals, at our end of the canal,...(my little piece of paradise),...for years.

I'm also quite positive if I were to try and point out to Miles, or even  to Armondo, (who actually hit Steve), that this was the same lizard,..they would say something like;   " oh no this guy was big and orange,..that is not the same one", not being aware of the fact that these animal change color, and shape in seconds through the use of  chromatophores, body compression, leg extension, and the raising and lowering their spines, (yes they have control over their spines).  

I have now witnessed 3 iguana deaths, one via a large Broad-Wing Hawk snatching a hatching, and now,..two via human.
.

The two pictures above are the last time I ever saw him, I offered him Hibiscus flowers, (his favorite) and Romaine,...he ate one Hibiscus blossom from me by hand,...I went down about a half an hour later,...and he was gone.

This didn't have to happen.

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth. 

-Henry Beston

 A young Carl and Steve, (two years ago, spring 2010)

Steve is on the left

I am going to miss you buddy

Steve is gone

Steve visited the dock for the next two days,...then disappeared.

Two days after his disappearance it became crystal-clear what his job had been,...that he indeed was the "Door-Man"
The dock has been packed with all kinds of crazy Iguanas I have never seen before, large and small.


 I have lost a friend, this little being with whom I fed and interacted with for years,...he would crawl right up on your lap and allow you to pet him even after he had eaten, i.e. it wasn't just food-motivation.


To be killed in such a way, by a neighbor,..a neighbor  I actually like,...is really though for me.
I can't say anything,....for I would look crazy, the majority of people want them gone, they view me as some crazy old cat-women/man who feeds un-indigenous garden-eating rats.

Steve was the only iguana to ever come up to the house, go up the stairs, and,... with three barking dogs inside, (their natural enemy) scratch on the sliding glass door to be fed.

I am truly already missing this animal.

Rest In Peace  little buddy

I have taken an unintentional break from this Blog, first, simply for the lack of time, second, I resigned  my self to a single entry a week.
It's been a few weeks since I last posted; everything seemed cool, old familiars began showing up, a bunch of new hatchlings, Carl showing up daily and taking the picnic bench,..which got me thinking were the hell is Steve?


Steve showed-up at the dock, after a two week hiatus this Tuesday morning , he was there before the sun rose, (no iguana ever shows up before 9:00AM).

Something was terribly wrong and I could see from my deck, and when I approached it was clear he had been attacked,... by either a dog or a human and his pelvis seemed to be broken, almost paralyzed in each back leg, his colors were dark and muted.

Carl came later in the morning and sat beside his childhood buddy all day.
Any aggression I had predicted between the two never materialized, and it seems their "friendship" will be to till the end.

Steve showed up this morning , (just around sunrise),..my friend Phil and his family came to visit, it seemed some how fitting that a friend of mine that actually reads this blog would be able to come down to the Keys, and sort-of pay  his respects, Phil seemed optimistic, sighting the Carl incident, and how fatal I believed that may be at the time,...but I knew down inside that this is different.
  Steve just remained curled up in the base of the Papasan chair for most of the day and has just begun to move around I feel today may be one of the last days I get to hang out with my little buddy.

.......just found out from a neighbor that another neighbor, (diagonally across the canal) had hit one with a shovel a few days ago because it was "threatening" his little lap-dog.
It  is highly unlikely that Steve was threatening his dog at all, ..if anything simply holding his ground.
It is highly likely though, that Armondo smashed him with a shovel after seeing what he believed to be his little dog in trouble, however, it is mainly my fault for creating a situation where Steve felt comfortable enough around humans that his natural "fight or flight" responses/reactions where "dulled".

I have debated catching him and taking him to the vet, but quickly dismissed the idea as poor, knowing that most animals, especially reptiles and fish will stress out to the point of simply "shutting-down" if removed from their habitat, (especially while combating the stress of  a preexisting physical ailment)
I figure his last days should be unmolested and peaceful here on the dock where he has lived for the past 5 years.